4 Tips to Ensure 99.99% Uptime for your Online Reputation

99.99% uptime. It’s something that we’ve come to expect from our hosting providers, yet when it comes to our online reputation, we’ve somehow settled for a lot less.

Yet, just like the importance of 100% uptime for our web sites, so too our online reputations should be considered as something that requires our 100% attention–okay, perhaps 99.99%–at all times.

Here are four simple tips to make sure your reputation doesn’t suffer an outage:

1. Your Reputation Doesn’t Take the Weekends Off

I’ve stopped counting the number of reputation crises that I’ve seen take place over the weekend. Whether it’s a self-inflicted wound caused by a careless executive late on a Friday, or a product that decides to take its last breath on a Sunday night, there are an infinite number of reasons why your reputation can come under attack, outside of normal business hours.

While it may be impossible for your social media team to work 7 days a week, I like the strategy used by service technicians. Have someone on call once a month, and rotate through four different people. While “on call” that person doesn’t have to stay glued to Twitter, but they certainly can check in every 2-3 hours to make sure all is well.

2. Social Media Monitoring is Your Friend

Of course, as the CEO of one of the world’s largest social media monitoring platforms, I’m going to recommend that you have some kind of social media listening tool in place. Listening tools have become very sophisticated and that employee on call will appreciate the extra assistance.

Set up your social media monitoring to trigger alerts, identify important influencers, and make you aware of any negative conversations. It sure beats checking all corners of the web each hour.

3. Create an Out-of-Hours Reputation Crisis Plan

During the week, right after your Tuesday foosball contest, or with your Friday donuts, sit down and map out a crisis plan for responding to any reputation attacks that take place outside of office hours.

Decide who should be alerted, who should respond, and at what point do you call people back into the office to help fight the fire. Make sure that any email or telephone number on your web site redirects to the person on call so they can help quarterback any crisis.

4. Act the Part, Even When Not On the Clock

Just because it’s the weekend, that doesn’t mean you can separate your personal actions from those of your employer. Just ask Adam Smith! Whether you’re at a bar, football game, or just goofing off on Twitter, your actions will reflect on the reputation of your employer.

Make sure your employees know that whatever they say or do during their personal time, could still harm the company’s reputation. The good news is, if they’re awesome people during their free time, that too will reflect on your company’s reputation–in a good way!

While 100% uptime may not be possible for hosting, or reputations, that’s not a good reason to not strive for it. Aim high and if you hit 99.99%, you’re still doing remarkably well. 😉

 

Bio

Andy Beal is the CEO of Trackur, one of the largest social media monitoring services in the world. With plans starting at just $18 a month, Trackur offers audience measurement, sentiment analysis, and influence metrics without the high price or steep learning curve.